Incarnational Experience

Pilgrim Band: Incarnational Experience

Many of my readers have difficulty understanding what I mean by “incarnational experience”. I mean simply, and profoundly, the felt touch of the Holy. It is the momentary intersection of intimacy and immanence. It may be recognized instantly or in retrospect, but it cannot be contained, cajoled, or fully explained. It is tactile in the sense that it is really real, and it is ecstatic in the sense that it draws us out of reality into infinity. It is triggered by the intuition of pure goodness, truth, and beauty.

Incarnational experience is not progressive but rather regenerative. It does not make us into a “new” person but allows us to recover our “original” selves. You might say it allows us to return to the original innocence of birth. Therefore, it is a re-experience of both pain and joy, tears and laughter. Metaphorically, you might say that it takes us back, for a fleeting moment, to the way we were at creation and before existence.

Incarnational experience is not a “content” of information nor a “form” of culture, but it is the import or significance that inspires content and uses form to transform, enlighten, motivate, empower, and ultimately, to hope. It is the exclamation that drowns out all the periods, commas, dashes, and semi-colons that punctuate the narratives of our lives. It is the butterfly passing through the graveyard.

One reason readers misunderstand my reference to “incarnational experience” is that it has been traditionally linked to Jesus the Christ. The concept, however, is bigger than the dogma. Yes, for me, Jesus the Christ is the paradigm for the intersection of intimacy and immanence, helping me understand and celebrate the love and grace of God, but incarnational experience cannot be contained or explained by an theology of Christ, nor can it be exclusively “owned” or “known” by any particular religious tradition.

Incarnational experience is the phenomenon of “God-with-us”, or, as I prefer to say, “God-among-us”. In ancient culture these two expressions amounted to the same thing, but in modern culture the term “God-with-us” often implies a passive presence, while the term “God-among-us” implies an active presence. The touch of the Holy can be quiet and reassuring in private life, but it can also be explosive and transformative in public life. It invites not only appreciation of God’s love but also stupefaction at God’s power.

Incarnational experience, or the felt touch of the Holy, can intrude or erupt in our lives in at least seven ways (see pp. 143-146 of my book

·         Creative birth and rebirth

·         Bold commitment and radical sacrifice

·         Repentance and forgiveness

·         Passage of time and moments of timelessness

·         Intimate unity and deep trust

·         Calling and personal fulfilment

·         Acceptance and hope

As human yearning reaches up, so also does divine grace reach down, to “join hands” or at least “touch fingertips” that connect the finite and the infinite, my history and God’s purpose. Incarnational experience, in theological conversation, is really a part of Pneumatology rather than Christology.

The pilgrim band is a flow of experience across space and time that is driven by the vital force of Spirit. It flows from the immanence of God in the human soul that is intuited by the seeker or traveler. It enters personal and social history and the ever-changing cultural forms that symbolize or convey meaning and purpose. These are incarnational experiences in which the finite and infinite paradoxically intersect. But it also flows beyond history to envision or anticipate the reunion of the soul with God. This experience of transcendence may only be occasional and temporary, but the spiritual traveler can catch glimpses of personal destiny and even the destination of life itself.